DOCSLIB.ORG

Is the Double Majority Really Double? the Second Round in the Debate of the Voting Rules in the EU Constitutional Treaty

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Is the Double Majority Really Double? the Second Round in the Debate of the Voting Rules in the EU Constitutional Treaty Is the double majority really double? The second round in the debate of the voting rules in the EU Constitutional Treaty Axel Moberg 30/5/2007 Is the double majority really double? The second round in the debate of the voting rules in the EU Constitutional Treaty1 Axel Moberg Summary The voting rules in the Council of the EU have been under constant negotiation over the past 15 years, in the light of successive enlargements and ending with the Nice Treaty and the Constitutional Treaty. The latter replaced the traditional system of weighted votes, with a double majority of 55% of member states, representing 65% of the population. The discussion should be seen mainly in the perspective of the power balance between large and small states in the enlarged Union. This paper aims to explain the effects of the double majority with cruder but more realistic methods than voting power calculations, and by putting them into their political context. It shows that the heavy criticism of the Nice rules for their complexity and ineffectiveness is largely exaggerated. In the double majority under the Constitutional Treaty the balance of power between member states would in practice be determined entirely by the size of their populations. The state leg would hardly ever play a role, irrespective of the thresholds for population or states. The result is a substantial change in the balance between member states. This was the most controversial issue in the negotiations about the Constitutional Treaty, but there has been little discussion about this after it was signed. Now that the treaties are to be renegotiated the matter arises again, and Poland and possibly the Czech Republic will make proposals for a different model. Therefore, the paper also examines a few other options, if there should be a substantial discussion of the matter, and the prospects that they could bring about a compromise. The Background: Enlargement, Balance of Power and ‘Legitimacy’ Since the establishment of the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1958, decisions by qualified majority (QMV) have been based on a system with weighted votes with over- representation of medium-sized and small states (‘degressive proportionality’). The system has been discussed intensely, together with other institutional issues, at the last enlargements and at Inter- Governmental Conferences (IGC) on treaty changes ending at Amsterdam (1997) and Nice (2000). In the perspective of enlargement to Central and East European countries, an agreement was reached at Nice on the institutional changes that were necessary for enlargement. The voting rules consist of qualified majorities of the weighted votes and the population and a majority of member states. So far the principle of degressivity was not questioned. The discussion of voting rules in the EU must be seen in terms of the balance of power between member states. Some of the large2 member states have been seriously concerned that their share of the votes has decreased through the admission of new members (as would happen in any club), and wish to restore the situation. In absolute terms the share of, say, France, has fallen from almost 25% in the original EC-6 to about 8.4% in EU-27. The under-representation of the large states has also increased modestly with the increased number of small and over-represented member states. Spain has also been concerned about the balance after the 1995 ‘northern’ enlargement. The code words 1 The views expressed in this paper are the author’s alone, and not those of his government. The author would like thank a great many colleagues and researchers for useful advice and interesting discussions, in particular Max Albert, Madeleine Hosli, Jan-Erik Lane, Annick Laruelle, Moshé Machover, Iain Paterson, Wojciech Słomczyński and Helen Wallace. 2 In the paper this refers to the four largest: Germany to Italy. Spain and Poland are a group to themselves. The medium- sized are Netherlands to Bulgaria. Small refers to the rest. 1 for greater weight have often been ‘democratic legitimacy’ or ‘efficient institutions’. However, the share of each of the smaller countries has also fallen, the over-representation of all smaller countries has also decreased by the same percentage, and the proportions between a given large country and a given small one did not change until Nice (Moberg, 1998, 2002). The voting rules, as well as other parts of the Nice Treaty, have been increasingly criticised in the public debate, not least by the governments –France and Germany– that once designed them. It has been argued that the rules are extremely complicated and difficult to apply, that Spain and Poland obtained too much weight compared with the big four, and that the high thresholds for a qualified majority would lead to sclerosis or paralysis in decision-making. The latter fear is largely inspired by academic voting power studies (Baldwin et al., 2001; Felsenthal and Machover, 2001). There has even been the opposite fear: that the rules would lead to a directorate of large countries (The Economist, 2000). There are several explanations to the criticism of the Nice rules, some of them emotional. There was obviously some confusion at Nice and certain points had to be straightened out afterwards. Many in the public debate had not understood, or accepted, the limited mandate of the Nice IGC. More importantly, the large countries had been hoping to get more. Some medium-sized and small member states might have hoped to get away without any substantial re-weighting, despite commitments they had made at Amsterdam. Germany had insisted on a greater weight to reflect its larger population after its reunification. France had resisted, insisting on the historical ‘parity’. Netherlands and Belgium had a similar dispute, and others also had problems with the increased weight of neighbouring countries. The alleged ‘inefficiency’ of the system also played a role. There was a certain amount of revanchism in the air. Eventually the issue came up again, in the context of a complete re-shaping of the treaties at the Convention on the future of Europe that ended in 2003 and an IGC that ended in 2004, and a Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe was adopted. The ratification procedure has been partly suspended after the negative outcome of the referendums in France and the Netherlands, and a ‘silent no’ in the UK and maybe some other countries. The German Presidency is now trying to re- start negotiations on a new treaty. The institutional issues, and in particular the voting rules, will in all likelihood become the driving force in these negotiations. The other parts of the Constitutional Treaty can largely be seen as a recycling of the old treaties. The Paper’s Purpose and Methods The purpose of this paper is to study the voting rules under the Constitutional Treaty, and its effects on the balance of power between member states. It does this largely by a comparison with the voting rules under the Nice Treaty, which was the main alternative in the negotiations. Most studies agree that the double majority would entail a substantial change in the balance, in favour of the large states, and some scholars have expressed concern over this. Before the final deal in the last IGC there was even an Open Letter of almost 50 scientists against it. But available studies have hardly explained why there is a change in the balance, which this paper attempts to do. It does not aim to build upon any particular theory, but rather to confront dominating voting power studies with the political context and with what the negotiations really were about. The paper only deals with voting rules and not with other more or less related institutional issues, like the balance between the institutions, a permanent President of the European Council, a ‘Foreign Minister’ of the Union or the scope for a qualified majority, etc. It begins with a short comment on the ideological issue: what voting rules should be about. It is followed by a short discussion of decision-making in the EU. It then continues with a short comment on voting power methods, partly in reply to Hosli’s and Machover’s (2004) criticism of a previous paper. The following sections, which are the core of the paper, give an overview of the 2 negotiations that led to the Constitutional Treaty, summaries of the two main options, a discussion of the effects of these and why the double majority changes the balance. Finally, there is a short comment on a few alternative models that have at least figured in the discussions. The paper is based on relatively simple calculations of the effects of the proposals that were made, on the arguments that were used in the negotiations, the actual objectives of the actors and how these could be achieved. There are few written records of the discussions betweens member states. Therefore the paper partly builds on the author’s observations as a civil servant during some of the negotiations. In this paper the calculations of ‘power’ will be based on the member states’ share of the weighted votes and on their share of the necessary blocking minority, or qualified majority, with different voting rules in a given composition of the union. To avoid confusion with voting power terminology the latter shares are referred to as a state’s voting/blocking ‘potential’. The ratio between a country’s share of the votes and its share of the population is used as a simple measure of its over-/under-representation. Unlike other measures used at the IGCs, it offers a point of equilibrium. 1. Excursus: What is ‘Democratic Legitimacy’? Authors have widely ideologically-diverging views of what ‘democratic legitimacy’ means in the EU context, and whether it is at all possible or desirable in the same sense as in member states.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Voting Systems in the Council of the EU and the Bundesrat – What Do They Tell Us About European Federalism? by Jacek Czaputowicz and Marcin Kleinowski
    ISSN: 2036-5438 The voting systems in the Council of the EU and the Bundesrat – What do they tell us about European Federalism? by Jacek Czaputowicz and Marcin Kleinowski Perspectives on Federalism, Vol. 10, issue 1, 2018 Except where otherwise noted content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons 2.5 Italy License E -174 Abstract The Treaty of Lisbon introduced a new system of weighted votes in the Council, which radically departs from the principles on which the distribution of votes between the Member States of the EU was based for more than half a century. At the same time, the system of double majority is fundamentally different from the assumptions on which voting systems in federal states are based, including in the Bundesrat. Systems used in federal states are usually based on a compromise between the equality of states, and the equality of citizens. Consequently, in the Nice system, smaller Member States in the EU had relatively greater power compared to their populations than smaller federal units in the German Bundesrat. The results presented in this paper indicate that the Lisbon system of voting in the Council differs significantly from voting systems in federal states. Key-words Council of the European Union, Bundesrat, voting power, Nice voting system, double majority voting system Except where otherwise noted content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons 2.5 Italy License E -175 1. Introduction Is the European Union evolving towards a federal system? Evidence speaking for the European Union being similar to a federation includes: EU institutions taking over competences previously held by states; the principle of supremacy of European law and its direct effect in national law; and cooperation between federal institutions and the constituent units in executing various tasks.I What speaks against this thesis is: the lack of a European constitution; of the right to impose taxes; as well as the fact that states retain their membership in international organisations, such as the UN.
    [Show full text]
  • Majority Voting in the EU: Beneficial Or Just Equally Harmful Elizabeth Degori Scripps College
    Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union Volume 2008 Article 7 February 2012 Majority Voting in the EU: Beneficial or Just Equally Harmful Elizabeth DeGori Scripps College Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.claremont.edu/urceu Part of the Constitutional Law Commons, Election Law Commons, European Law Commons, and the Legislation Commons Recommended Citation DeGori, Elizabeth (2008) "Majority Voting in the EU: Beneficial or Just Equally Harmful," Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union: Vol. 2008, Article 7. DOI: 10.5642/urceu.200801.07 Available at: http://scholarship.claremont.edu/urceu/vol2008/iss1/7 This Chapter is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at Claremont at Scholarship @ Claremont. It has been accepted for inclusion in Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union by an authorized administrator of Scholarship @ Claremont. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union 55 5 MAJORITY VOTING IN THE EU: BENEFICIAL OR JUST EQUALLY HARMFUL Elizabeth OeGori ABSTRACT Passing legislation on the basis of unanimity in the Council of Ministers has become increasingly difficult, but creating a fair voting system for a qualified majority is arguably even harder. After providing a small amount of background on the system of Qualified MajorityVoting (QMV) itself, I discuss the desired qualities in a just decision rule; the effects of enlargem ent on such a system; and the current debate between small and large states. In order to do so, I consider the differential effects of using voting weights directly proportional to the populations of member states as opposed to alternative bases.
    [Show full text]
  • Charles University in Prague Faculty of Social Sciences Institut of Economic Studies
    Charles University in Prague Faculty of Social Sciences Institut of Economic Studies Three Essays on Operations Research in Political Economy Dissertation Thesis DoleˇzelPavel Academic year 2011/2012 2 3 Abstract Thesis consists of three essays dealing with the exact methods of opera- tions research, mainly the mathematical optimization, used on the issues of political economy. The first two essays deal with the concept of the efficiency of weighted voting games (systems), the third essay is more practical and in- troduces three electoral methods that could be used in the real elections in order to minimize the level of disproportionality. The first essay deals with estimating the efficiency of weighted voting games using our own heuristic algorithm. We show the preciseness of our results in terms of probabilityand we apply the proposed algorithm to the efficiency of several institutions of the European Union, especially to the efficiency of the qualified majority rule used in the Council of the EU both under the Lisbon treaty and under the Treaty of Nice. The second essay provides a theoretical analysis of the efficiency of weighted voting games with focus on the maximal and minimal attainable efficiency given the quota and the number of voters. We present a proof of a theorem which enables us to find the efficiency maxima and minima in linear time and some corollaries of this theorem providing some further knowledge on the structure of the efficiency as a function of quota and number of voters. The third essay introduces three methods of convert- ing votes into seats within the elections to the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Parliament which are designed to minimize the level of disproportion- ality.
    [Show full text]
  • The Romanian Double Executive and the 2012 Constitutional Crisis Vlad Perju, Boston College Law School
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Digital Commons @ Boston College Law School Boston College Law School From the SelectedWorks of Vlad Perju January, 2015 The Romanian Double Executive and the 2012 Constitutional Crisis Vlad Perju, Boston College Law School Available at: http://works.bepress.com/vlad_perju/54/ THE ROMANIAN DOUBLE EXECUTIVE AND THE 2012 CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS Vlad Perju1 § 1. Introduction In the summer of 2012, Romania experienced the deepest constitutional crisis in its post- communist history. For the European Union (“EU”), which Romania joined in 2007, the crisis amplified an existential challenge posed by a turn to constitutional authoritarianism in its new member states. Coming after similar developments in Hungary, the Romanian crisis forced the “highly interdependent”2 EU to grapple with the question of how to enforce basic principles of constitutionalism within the states. That challenge would have been unthinkable even a decade earlier. In “A Grand Illusion”, an essay on Europe written in 1996, well before the Eastern expansion of the EU, Tony Judt argued that the strongest argument for such an expansion, which he otherwise did not favor, was that membership in the Union would quiet the “own internal demons” of the Eastern 3 European countries and “protect them against themselves.” It turns out, however, that 1 Associate Professor, Boston College Law School and Director, Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy. I have presented earlier versions of this paper at the ICON conference on Constitutionalism in Central and Eastern Europe at Boston College, the Montpelier Second Comparative Constitutional Law Roundtable, the International and Comparative Law Workshop at Harvard Law School and at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University.
    [Show full text]
  • Transnational Electoral Lists
    Transnational electoral lists Ways to Europeanise elections to the European Parliament STUDY EPRS | European Parliamentary Research Service Author: Maria Diaz Crego Members' Research Service PE 679.084 – February 2021 EN Transnational electoral lists Ways to Europeanise elections to the European Parliament The creation of a pan-European constituency, comprising the whole territory of the European Union, in which a number of Members of the European Parliament would be elected from transnational electoral lists, figures high among proposals to enhance the European dimension of the elections to the European Parliament. Although the idea to create a European constituency gained momentum with 73 seats in the European Parliament due to become vacant as a consequence of the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union, the proposal is far from new and has been debated in the European institutions and academia since the 1990s. This paper analyses the main proposals to create a European constituency (or constituencies) that have been discussed in the European Parliament, other European institutions and academia, and details the legal changes that would be needed at European and national level to bring the idea to fruition. EPRS | European Parliamentary Research Service AUTHOR María Díaz Crego, Members' Research Service, European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS), European Parliament. Giulio Sabbati, Samy Chahri and Lucille Killmayer (EPRS) are responsible for the graphics. The author would like to thank the following policy analyst from the Members' Research Service for providing information in relation to the following Member States: the Netherlands and Finland (Ingeborg Odink); Czechia (Marketa Pape); Germany (Hendrik Alexander Mildebrath); Luxembourg (Marie-Laure Augère- Granier); Malta (Denise Chircop); Hungary (Gabriella Zana-Szabo); Poland (Rafal Manko); Croatia (Kristina Grosek); Slovenia (Anja Radjenovic).
    [Show full text]
  • Serbia and Montenegro
    Serbia and Montenegro Self-rule INSTITUTIONAL DEPTH AND POLICY SCOPE Serbia and Montenegro, the legal successor of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, was a federation between 1992 and 2002, a confederation between 2003 and 2006, and becaMe two independent states in June 2006 (Batt 2002, 2007; Crnohrnja 2002). 1 The federation and confederation consisted of two republics: Serbia (Republika Srbija) and Montenegro (Republika Crna Gora). Serbia contained two autonomous regions, Kosovo (Kosovo i Metohija) and Vojvodina (Autonomna Pokrajina Vojvodina). Serbia was divided into twentY-nine okruzi (districts), of which five districts are in Kosovo, plus the capital city of Belgrade (Beograd) which also served as a district. Montenegro had no intermediate tier. The 1992 constitution listed federal competences and granted the constituent republics residual powers. AMong federal competences were civil rights, regulation of the single Market (including standard setting on agricultural, health, and pharmaceutical products), the environment, health, regional development, science and technology, transportation, territorial waters, property rights, social security and labor standards, foreign relations, customs, iMMigration, and defense (C 1992, Art. 77). All other Matters fell within the jurisdiction of the republics, including the right to conduct foreign relations and conclude treaties on Matters within their competence. Citizenship was a competence of the republics, with the proviso that citizens of a republic were automatically citizens of Serbia–Montenegro and enjoyed equal rights and duties in the other republic, except for the right to vote and be elected (C 1992, Art. 17). The constitutional revision of 2003 restricted confederal competences to defense, iMMigration, international law, standardization, intellectual property, and free MoveMent of people (C 2003, Art.
    [Show full text]
  • Is the Double Majority Really Double? the Second Round in the Debate of the Voting Rules in the EU Constitutional Treaty Axel Mo
    Is the double majority really double? The second round in the debate of the voting rules in the EU Constitutional Treaty Axel Moberg 30/5/2007 Is the double majority really double? The second round in the debate of the voting rules in the EU Constitutional Treaty1 Axel Moberg Summary The voting rules in the Council of the EU have been under constant negotiation over the past 15 years, in the light of successive enlargements and ending with the Nice Treaty and the Constitutional Treaty. The latter replaced the traditional system of weighted votes, with a double majority of 55% of member states, representing 65% of the population. The discussion should be seen mainly in the perspective of the power balance between large and small states in the enlarged Union. This paper aims to explain the effects of the double majority with cruder but more realistic methods than voting power calculations, and by putting them into their political context. It shows that the heavy criticism of the Nice rules for their complexity and ineffectiveness is largely exaggerated. In the double majority under the Constitutional Treaty the balance of power between member states would in practice be determined entirely by the size of their populations. The state leg would hardly ever play a role, irrespective of the thresholds for population or states. The result is a substantial change in the balance between member states. This was the most controversial issue in the negotiations about the Constitutional Treaty, but there has been little discussion about this after it was signed. Now that the treaties are to be renegotiated the matter arises again, and Poland and possibly the Czech Republic will make proposals for a different model.
    [Show full text]
  • The Issue of Majority in a Federal System - the Particular Cases of Constituent Power and of Amendment of the Federal Compact
    - 1 - The issue of majority in a federal system - the particular cases of constituent power and of amendment of the federal compact by Olivier Beaud Professor of public law at Université de Paris II (Panthéon-Assas) In this lecture, I would like to study the hypothesis which holds that the issue of majority is posed in a different way, at least partly so, depending on whether a Federation or a state is concerned. This assumption of a relatively singular nature of the federal case is completely in line with the more general thesis I have put forward in a recent book, in which I have tried to show the autonomy of the notion of Federation in relation to that of the state and the specificity of the public law of the Federation in comparison with the public law of the state1. However, it cannot be argued that the federal framework imposes a complete reversal in the way the issue of majority is tackled. Indeed, a framework homogeneous to the Federation and the state does exist, for there is a “right of the majority” or a “majority regime”2 which is common to all political entities. Indeed, the political and legal problem that the majoritarian decision poses is, most of the time, presented in the same terms: how and why is the decision which has been taken by a majority valid as the decision of all? More to the point, why does the minority, who has voted against the decision of the majority, have to abide by it all the same? Clearly, such an issue takes two forms, depending on whether we consider the majority to be a “technique” of decision-making or a “principle”, one of legitimacy3.
    [Show full text]
  • Bridging the Democratic Deficit
    © One World Trust and Bretton Woods Project Bridging the democratic deficit: Double majority decision making and the IMF Peter Chowla, Jeffrey Oatham and Claire Wren* Executive summary In order to improve its legitimacy and effectiveness, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) needs to consider new reform proposals. The current voting system based on unequal weights puts weaker members at considerable disadvantage in decision making. As a result, the IMF faces further loss of confidence and disengagement by member countries. Quota formula recalculation even if accompanied by an increase in basic votes, risks further reducing developing country influence in decision making. Instead, the IMF should implement a double majority voting system that requires the achievement of two separate majorities—one based on one-country one-vote and the other on economically weighted quotas—for any decision to be made. This paper describes this system as a state-weight double majority, reflecting the two components of the suggested approach. Reforms must empower those sidelined by the existing system and build in important checks to abuse of power. For progress to be made, however, they should not remove the ability of current power holders to look after their interest through traditional voting weights. By accepting the political realities inherent in the relations between countries, incremental reforms can achieve more voice for developing countries without affecting quota allocation. A state-weight double majority will increase developing country influence in decision making by creating a situation where they can build coalitions with like-minded states. The increased dialogue that this would generate between members and the incentives it will create to build consensus will result in more stable and effective decisions.
    [Show full text]
  • Swiss Democratic Culture Mandatory and Optional Referendum
    Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft Embassy of Switzerland in Australia Confederation suisse e Confederazione Svizzera Confederaziun svizra Senator the Hon Kim Carr Chair, Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee PO Box 6100 Parliament House Canberra ACT 2600 Your message of: 30.08.2019 Our reference: Contact person: Daina Larsens Canberra, 21.10.2019 Inquiry into nationhood, national identity and democracy - Submission by Switzerland Dear Senator Carr, Thank you for the invitation to make a submission to this important inquiry. In Switzerland, trust in government is the highest of all OECD countries (80% in 2017, the OECD average being 42%). My following comments are an attempt to explain the rationale and reason of this strength. Should you have further questions or wish to discuss these issues, please do not hesitate contacting me again at a later stage. Swiss democratic culture Switzerland has a strong and unique democratic tradition. Besides electing the parliaments on communal, cantonal and federal level, the Swiss People has the right to directly refuse or accept new laws passed by parliament, and to propose modifications to the Constitution. These elements of direct democracy (Mandatory Referendum, Optional Referendum, Popular Initiative) are fundamental features of Swiss public life and politics. They exist in different versions on the federal, the cantonal and the communal levels of Switzerland. The supreme political body of Switzerland is the People. The 26 Cantons and 2255 Communes are politically autonomous as far as practical. According to the fundamental principle of subsidiarity, only those public tasks which cannot be handled effectively on a lower level, are delegated to the next upper level.
    [Show full text]
  • Theories of Referendum and the Analysis of Agenda-Setting
    THEORIES OF REFERENDUM AND THE ANALYSIS OF AGENDA-SETTING Thesis submitted for the PhD-degree Maija Talvikki Setala The London School of Economics and Political Science 1997 UMI Number: U109490 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U109490 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 74 7 Theories of Referendum and the Analysis of Agenda-Setting Abstract The referendum is often considered to be a form of direct democracy, and is often justified in terms of results representing the will of the majority. This view is disputable for three reasons: i) based on the results of social choice theory, it may be argued that the outcomes of referendums may be arbitrary and open to various interpretations; ii) it is debatable what the role of popular majorities should be in decision-making; many theorists of democracy think that unchecked majority rule shouldnot prevail; iii) because of the differences in agenda-setting, there is considerable functional variation between referendums. Different forms of referendums have also been justified by different theoretical arguments: popular initiatives have been promoted by radical democrats, whereas referendums used as a check on legislature have been supported by 'Madisonian' democrats.
    [Show full text]
  • Eu Policy Briefs
    EU POLICY BRIEFS Trends of minority rights’ protec- tion in the countries of the Adriatic area and the Republic of Mace- donia: comparative analysis and Nr. 1 perspectives October 2012 www.kas.de/macedonia Marina Andeva, Ph.D (ITALY, Istituto di Sociologia Internazionale di Gorizia) [1] www.crpm.org.mk Abstract In European Union territorial perspective ethnic minorities pass state borders. In the Adriatic and the Balkan area the key to development towards an integrated, harmoni- ous and sustainable socio-economic area is to be found in minorities’ bridging role. Often such role can be a cause for political confrontation, marginalization or, at worse, radicalization processes. The colourful ethnic landscapes of the Adriatic and the Balkan Peninsula embrace different minority groups (historical, national and/or new minori- ties). The Adriatic Area includes various but quite homogeneous ethnic groups, for historical, geographic and cultural reasons. Then again, the Republic of Macedonia as an example from the Balkan Region, shares the same characteristics. The paper fo- cuses on the main common issues, encountered in some Adriatic countries and in Re- public of Macedonia, such as language and self-representation rights. The complexity of the minorities’ situation in the selected areas requires a the use of the comparative methods, considering different perspectives in order to produce a joint approach, suit- able for elaborating and presenting some main perspectives and lessons to be learned; This study uses a secondary data analysis on legislative provisions in some countries of the Adriatic area (Italy, Slovenia, Croatia and Montenegro) and in the Republic of Macedonia as an advanced model of minority rights protecting in the Balkan Peninsula.
    [Show full text]